Leadership Lessons From 'Barefoot Contessa'

One Sunday afternoon in the late 1970s, Ina Garten was sitting in her home in Washington, D.C., reading The New York Times. Garten was working at the White House in the Jimmy Carter administration but wanted to become a chef. She loved to host dinner parties and entertain using recipes from Julia Child’s French Cookbook. As she was thumbing through the paper, Garten saw an ad for a small gourmet bakeshop in the Hamptons that was available for purchase. Garten convinced her husband, Jeffrey, to let her fulfill her dreams and buy the Barefoot Contessa Bake Shop.

So, off they went to the south shore of Long Island to start another chapter of their lives. Soon enough, the Barefoot Contessa became the talk of the Hamptons, and Garten needed more space to accommodate her surging fan base. Eventually, the Food Network launched, and much to Garten’s surprise, she became the Barefoot Contessa in our living rooms. Her authentic style, smooth presence, tasty recipes, and signature line, “How easy is that?” quickly made her a fan favorite.

Garten then took over the cookbook market, becoming a New York Times bestseller and the top cookbook producer. As with any endeavor she takes on, Garten brings a genuineness, along with simple methods that anyone can duplicate. So what makes her cookbooks sell? She tests her recipes over and over, until they become worthy of her approval.

Many of us, because of the pandemic, had more time than usual to come up with new ways to help those we lead and to improve our workflow. Being creative is one of the positives this pandemic has forced upon us. But our time to think, review and change will only assist us in the future if — and this is a big if — we adopt the Barefoot Contessa’s method of recipe approval. Before we do anything new, or alter our methods, we need to think about Ina, and how she plans her cookbooks — painstakingly going over each recipe.

When we install something new, we need the following 4 steps:

The Barefoot Contessa Rules:

1. Does it Fit? Make sure the new fits into our core culture and beliefs. Adding something that does not represent our culture will only mix messages to those we lead — not bring about a positive change.

2. Second-Order Thinking. Find ways to test the idea, ask others who might be using the same method what the pitfalls could be. Use second-order thinking to help you. Visualize the implementation, then work backward to find potential problems.

3. Discard. Don’t be afraid to say no to something. It might look perfect, it might fit the culture, but it also might not work.

4. Wait and wait some more. Wait until you have exhausted every avenue of testing and then re-test one final time. You need to know the problems that could arise beforehand.

There is a reason Garten’s books fly off the shelf — her thoughts are practical and she executes her meticulously-constructed plans. Let’s make sure we do the same.

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